Letters to the Editor

Friday

Mar 8, 2013 at 2:00 AM

Climate deniers use naive deceptions

Climate deniers use naive deceptions

Two similar, scientifically naive deceptions have recently re-surfaced to deny the science of climate change. One claims the current global warming is natural variability; the other that carbon dioxide could not be the cause because its concentration is too small.

Of course climate scientists are aware of historic climate changes and generally understand the factors inducing past patterns. The basis of scientific methodology is testing hypotheses. Scientific confidence in a relationship grows when all other possible causal factors have been rejected by analysis.

Thus is how climate science investigates global warming. All other possible factors that might induce the warming we have seen over the last century have been rejected by analysis. Increasing concentration of carbon dioxide stands as the only remaining factor able to cause the warming we have seen. Indeed, without the human-induced atmospheric carbon dioxide increase, these factors would have caused global cooling through the first decade of this century.

The warming properties of atmospheric carbon dioxide were suggested in the 1820s and subsequently confirmed — even at the low concentrations known to exist. The idea is not new. Low concentrations of chemicals in parts per billion can have profound and even lethal consequences.

Arguing that an increase in carbon dioxide from 275 to 400 parts per million (nearly 50 percent) is too small to have any possible climatic effect is uninformed. Denying the conclusion that carbon dioxide is causing global warming requires proposing a factor unknown to science.

Alan Journet

Jacksonville

Ashland is still a city of people who care

As evidence that Ashland is still the city of people who care, here's our story.

Our dog is a loving, happy member of the family, who just can't overcome her genes. She's a bird dog, and if given the slightest opportunity, will chase every sparrow and goose until she's exhausted. Yesterday, while on a "potty break," she finagled a way out of the yard, trailing her broken tether. Now here's the Ashland miracle: When returned home late at night, she had been rescued from the trailing tangle, was clean and whole.

Some Ashland soul had found her and with great compassion, had freed her, cared for her, and sent her home. Our hearts are overflowing with joy and gratitude to this "heart of Ashland" person. Thank you for rescuing our precious Savannah, and for making this the great city we love.

Ellen Wilfong-Grush

Ashland

Frustrated about homelessness issue

I have lived in Ashland for about three years now. I've been loosely following the issue of homelessness here and what's being done to alleviate the problem which, so far, hasn't been much of anything.

While I am not aware of all the reasons the Plaza is being remodeled, it just seems to me that the money being spent on that would have been more wisely spent on doing something to create a facility for temporary housing and other services for the homeless population here. It seems to me that business owners downtown do not want to deal with this very important issue, and that the city would rather not deal with it at all.

Spending money to figure out a solution to this issue seems like it would solve problems for both sides. It would mean less of the homeless people occupying the downtown area which would also make the business owners and tourists happy.

It is sad that people would rather look the other way and not deal with this sort of situation, but that is the reality. I am frustrated that Ashland cannot seem to figure this out when there are so many other cities in Oregon and elsewhere that are willing to give more help than Ashland does to those in need.